In the playground, for maybe a week, we all experimented with magical forces. Another child put their hands out either side of mine and told me to push against them. Then they told me to stop and moved their hands so there was space between theirs and mine. Magically, my hands were drawn towards theirs, as if a balloon was inflating between mine.

Many years before I became as they are I used to go to the park and sit with our feral friends. I did not feed them, nor chase them, I would simply sit amongst them, who knows how it started. All I know is that I was drawn to them; drawn to their peaceful flutterings. Once I sat squat on a wall next to a pond watching one peck at the floor, above was a tree that housed their flock. One by one the rest of the flock joined us below. One pigeon was perched close to me on the wall, staring almost longingly at me. I had nothing material they could want, only the clothes on my back. They started slowly moving towards me, until they gently hopped onto my forearm, which was rested on my knee.

In the milliseconds before my reflexes overwhelmed me, forcing my arm to move and causing them, and their flock to fly back home above the threshold, I felt a joy deeper than I had felt in a lifetime. It was like this pigeon saw in me something which even I couldn't, I fell in love with this pigeon, in love with this fleeting moment spent with it, I felt free.